The idea for this book came to me during an afternoon's fishing. A fisherman confronts the alien realm of the sea rather as gods and men in Old Norse myth and legend confront creatures of the Other World. Often, such encounters also involve the Otherness of opposite gender. But although there is a great variety of cross-gender encounters with the Other World, each god has his own typical experience. Usually, only the Vanir marry giantesses, only Þórr fights them, only Óðinn seduces them. I decided to look into the nature of these stereotypes and consider what needs might have produced them in the heathen period, why they continued to be used after the conversion to Christianity, and to what extent individual poets were at liberty to adapt or contradict them.

I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Board and the University of Durham for supporting the periods of research leave when much of the book was drafted, and the trustees of the Dorothea Coke Memorial Fund and the English Studies Research Committee, University of Durham, who provided grants for its publication. I have been much helped by Caroline Palmer of Boydell and Brewer, and have had many fruitful discussions with my Socrates exchange partners, Ásdís Egilsdóttir, Maria Elena Ruggerini and Rudolph Simek. Other scholars who have helped me include Sean Burke, Margaret Clunies Ross, Margaret Cormack, Roberta Frank, Terry Gunnell, Joseph Harris, Elizabeth Jackson, Bob Layton, Else Mundal, Richard North, Teresa Paroli, Christopher Sanders, Stefán Karlsson, Gro Steinsland, Clive Tolley, Margrethe Watt and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne. Eva Koch and Liz McKinnell provided the line-drawings, and Professor Watt gave me permission to use those by Eva Koch. I would like to express my warm thanks to all of them, and especially to Judy McKinnell and the rest of my family, who have been patient and supportive throughout the book's long gestation period.

The failings of this book are mine. There has proved to be too little space to pursue my last question fully – but it may be no bad thing to leave some unanswered questions at the end of a book.